Reading the Middle East: A Conversation with Elizabeth Tsurkov

Elizabeth Tsurkov has spent years doing what most researchers only read about — traveling into conflict zones, sitting with militia commanders, and listening to the people living inside the stories we think we understand.

A doctoral candidate at Princeton and fellow at both the Middle East Policy Council in Washington and the Forum for Regional Thinking in Jerusalem, she is one of the sharpest independent voices on the Arab world today. In 2023, while conducting field research in Iraq, she was abducted by an Iranian-backed militia and held for 903 days before being released in 2025.

In this conversation, she reflects on that heartbreaking experience — and on what Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the wider Middle East actually look like up close, beyond the headlines and the misconceptions that keep getting in the way.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:45 Surviving 903 Days in Captivity

03:43 The Dissertation That Kept Her Going

12:04 Inside Iraq's Corruption Machine

15:49 What Iraq Is Really Like

30:29 Was It Worth Going to Iraq?

34:26 How Captivity Changed Elizabeth Tsurkov

40:00 What's Really Happening in Syria?

51:03 Is Syria's New Leader Still a Jihadist?

56:08 Is Peace Between Israel and Syria Possible?

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